The attempt to define the stimulus from the observer's viewpoint is an old and difficult problem. One aspect of this problem is deciding if stimulus aspects that the experimenter manipulates independently are also independent aspects for the observer. If aspects are independent in some experiments but not in others, then models of information processing that are general over tasks will not become available unless we can account for the differing effects of stimulus attribute combinations. The portion of this problem studied in this article is, Do observers analyze the stimulus into its logical components, as the experimenter does when constructing them, and judge these components separately, or do observers initially judge the entire stimulus in a holistic manner ?Experiment 1 evaluated identification performance (accuracy and latency) on a set of integral stimuli. Analytic models, which call for independent judgments of stimulus attributes, and holistic models, which call for a single unitary judgment of the entire stimulus, make several different predictions of relative reaction times to identify different members in the stimulus subsets studied. None of the analytic predictions were supported. All of the results are consistent with a holistic model that had been suggested earlier (Lockhead, 1972).Experiment 2 compared identification performance as a function of the relations between stimuli in physical space and between the same stimuli in similarity space. The results provide comparison between several possible analytic models and the suggested holistic, or blob, model. The data support the holistic model and call for rejection of any model that requires detection of or judgments about aspects of integral stimuli before a unitary identification has been made.We conclude that it is the separation between stimuli in similarity space and not the experimenter-defined differences between stimuli that predicts object-identification performance. Increases in redundancy do not produce faster and more accurate object identification. It is the concomitant increase in psychological distance between stimuli, which often accompanies redundancy, that allows for improved performance.The stimuli used in Experiment 2 do not fit all previously suggested definitions of what makes an integral stimulus, and a broadened definition of integrality is suggested. The essence of the suggestion is that relations between the attributes as well perhaps as the attributes themselves are important considerations.

Automaticity theory and the effect of coloring a single element were tested with all or only 1 element colored in Stroop tasks. The 312 participants in 5 experiments indicated stimulus presentation color by key press. Experiments 1 and 2 replicated those of D. Besner, J. A. Stoltz, and C. Boutilier (1997) with some changes, and revealed similar results: less Stroop interference with only 1 letter colored. Besner et al. (1997) interpreted the results as indicating that coloring a single letter eliminates automatic reading processes. The cause of that reduction in Stroop interference was investigated in Experiments 3, 4, and 5 using color words, bars, and rectangles. The effect of coloring 1 element was to increase color-naming time by the same amount for congruent and neutral, nonverbal stimuli, but not for incongruent stimuli. The results are interpreted in terms of automaticity theory, and a continuous flow approach to the Stroop effect is presented.

The explanatory styles of 387 law students were assessed prior to law school using the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ). Longitudinal performance measures were collected throughout law school and related to each student's initial explanatory style. In contrast to studies with undergraduates, students who made stable, global, and internal attributions for negative events combined with the converse attributions for success (typically called pessimists) outperformed more optimistic students on measures of grade point averages and law journal success. We discuss the limitations of current attributional re‐search methodologies and suggest the prudent and cautious perspective necessary for law or skill‐based professions may account for our findings. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Two experiments were conducted to analyze factors related to the control of motor behavior by self-instruction and to replicate O'Leary's (1968) finding on the effectiveness of self-instruction in reducing rule-breaking behavior. The length of the temporal interval between the self-instruction and the opportunity to break the rules, and the amount of prior training in self-instruction were the variables under study. The effectiveness of self-instruction in reducing rule-breaking behavior was demonstrated in Exp. I, but no differences were found between groups which instructed either 1 or 9 sec. before the opportunity to respond motorically. As assessed by group differences in Exp. II, there was no evidence for the effectiveness of self-instruction or for the amount of prior training in self-instruction. However, in Exp. II, as in Exp. I, there were strong and significant correlations between the frequency of self-instruction and the absence of rule-breaking behavior. In addition, a serendipitous finding in Exp. II suggests that the effects of self-instruction may generalize to forms of rule-breaking behavior other than those explicitly proscribed.

422Linn and Petersen (1985) separated spatial ability tests into three categories based on effect size. One category of ability was spatial visualization, the ability to manipulate complex spatial information when several stages are needed to produce the correct solution. Gender differences in spatial visualization had a small effect size and were statistically nonsignificant. Another category of ability was spatial perception, the ability to determine spatial relations despite irrelevant information. Gender differences in spatial perception had a medium effect size and were statistically significant. The third category of ability was mental rotation, the ability to rotate two-or three-dimensional figures quickly and accurately in imagination and to compare them with other similar figures. Mental rotation was the only spatial ability category to yield a large gender difference effect size and was also statistically significant.More recently, Voyer, Voyer, and Bryden (1995) conducted a meta-analysis of the three categories of spatial abilities and found similar results. Spatial visualization tasks showed significant gender differences only for participants who were over 18 years old; for younger participants, there were no significant gender differences. Spatial perception tasks showed a significant gender difference for participants who were 13 and older. Mental rotation tasks showed gender differences for participants of all ages. For all three spatial ability categories, there was a significant linear increase in effect size with increasing age, possibly indicating that sexual differentiation is important in gender differences in spatial ability. They further found that the largest effect was found for the Mental Rotations Test (MRT; Vandenberg & Kuse, 1978).Wraga, Duncan, Jacobs, Helt, and Church (2006) report that, although traditional gender gaps in cognitive performance have diminished over many years, mental rotation tasks have consistently yielded large and reliable gender differences of about 1 standard deviation with no significant reduction. At least one study, however, found that, under certain circumstances, gender differences in the MRT did not hold.Goldstein, Haldane, and Mitchell (1990) administered the MRT under two different sets of instructions. In Experiment 1, participants were allowed the standard 3 min of time for each 10-item half of the test. The standard method of scoring the MRT is to count correct only those items for which both correct alternatives are marked (maximum possible score of 20). Using the standard scoring method, the probability of scoring a point by chance is .16. Instead of using the standard method of scoring, Goldstein et al. calculated scores in two alternate ways. One way was to count the number of correct alternatives chosen (maximum possible score of 40). With this method, the probability of scoring a point by chance is .5 for the first guess of an item. Goldstein et al.'s second scoring method was to derive the ratio of the number of correct alternatives chosen ...